


Baby, you're Where I Belong

by Mandergee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Spoilers for Season Two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3902449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mandergee/pseuds/Mandergee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a time of need, when words cut deeper than a knife ever could, Melinda May went to the one person she knew would understand. The one person who would be there when she needed them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby, you're Where I Belong

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers. For the most recent episode. So be warned.

"And what did you think when she said that?"

"What do you  _ think _ I thought about?" May took a shot of the whiskey at her elbow and sat back, stared at the city lights flickering distant outside beyond the picture window. The house was the same- brown and white, fixtures glistening stainless steel and titanium. Her piano, still up against the wall where she'd last seen it, trailing her fingertips across the keys as she walked out through the front door and out of his life. None of it had changed, and Melinda wondered if it had ever crossed Andrew's mind that he  _ could  _ change it. The house was his now...he could do whatever he wanted to do to make it a home without her.

But he hadn't. Reminders were everywhere, every day, and coming to the place she'd used to call home felt like a mistake, memories burning into her minds eye like the whiskey that flowed down her throat.

"You're getting defensive."

"And you're not my therapist, Drew. Stop trying to analyze me." That, she reflected, had been where finding comfort with Ward had been easy. Regardless of his motives he'd never talked, never tried to ask her about her feelings- just come into her bed and chased the pain and memories into a dark corner of her mind, replacing them with the passion and the pain she  _ really _ needed. 

“Then why did you come here, Melinda?" He was angry, holding it back in the familiar way he always had when they'd argue, and she could see the signs as clearly as she always had. Clenched jaw, finger subtly tapping at the cracked leather arm of the chair he'd chosen, a vantage point where he could look easily into her eyes and...she didn't know what. Look at her, as he'd been doing, hope that maybe he could find the solution to fixing her pain that he hadn't been able to find before? Or stare her down until she caved, turned tail and left for S.H.I.E.L.D, hoping she'd never come back? "What brings you all the way here, if it isn't to tell me what's bothering you? Doctor and Patient confidentiality stands for my sessions with Phil -"

"I'm not  _ asking  _ for that." He should have known, she agonized, and it was a mark of just how much he thought  _ she _ had changed if he thought she'd ever have asked. The idea of Phil consulting hadn't sat well with her, and the idea of it actually being a personal therapy session had only slightly lessened the sting of the secrets he'd hidden. She didn't know  _ why _ she'd come, if it wasn't for that. Why sit in a room she hadn't seen in seven years, and remember how happy she'd been when she lived there? Why face the man she'd only seen  _ once _ in those seven years, and be reminded about the things she'd wished their child would share with him?

"Then what is it?"  _ He hasn't changed at all _ . The realization was abrupt, as she lifted her eyes from the ice cubes slowly shrinking in the bottom of her glass. Andrew could never stay mad at her, the lines of his jaw already softening, and she thought about the times she'd tease him about it- lay her head on his chest and hear the beat of a heart that never hardened, never beat with anything less than confidence when it came to the woman he'd swept off her feet in such an easy, effortless attempt. But now she slept alone, listening to the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears and in the dark, thinking about little girls who might have looked like her. "Honey, what's wrong?"

_ Honey _ . Even Ward had never called her that, or even called her  _ anything _ \- their moments together filled with so much silence, gasps of passion held back when she would stare into his eyes and listen to the only sounds he'd ever make. They'd agreed from the start to keep things simple, needs fulfilled and nothing more- and the arrangement had suited her, or so she'd thought. She'd forgotten how much it hurt, how much it soothed, hearing the sound of Andrew's voice speaking to her like he used to..when she was still alive and loving  _ him  _ more than anything else in the world.

And Andrew still did. Love  _ her _ , which was clear as he stood and crossed the short space, knelt beside her chair and reached for the glass she clutched desperately, setting it aside. He'd carried her across that same space once, after bringing her over the threshold of their first  _ real _ home; kissed her dizzy when she'd joined him in Tai Chi on the oriental rug and whispered that she wanted a baby. A jumble of memories in no particular order, just his face and love, glowing in his eyes whenever he'd look down into hers.

Or up. In their lifetime she couldn't remember a day when he'd had to look up at her, but kneeling on the rug and grasping her hand in his Andrew  _ was _ looking up, and it was new. New like the rush that took over her mind when he reached out with his free hand, pulled her down beside him on the floor and let the tears come out in a steady stream to soak the fabric of his shirt. She cried for the baby, cried for the years she'd sacrificed her own life because she thought he deserved more...and for Skye, who she'd never realized would some day no longer need her. 

“I love you." The words were muffled, tasted of cotton and salt as she whispered it into the wet spot left from tears, and fear choking her as she pulled away to look at his face. She wondered if she'd caused the deep lines set into his forehead, or if the gentle spray of gray hair along his temple had come  _ after _ she'd gone away. "Andrew.."

"I never stopped," He answered, and it was perfect. Everything she'd needed to hear in three words, and she knew why she had come.

She'd come for forgiveness. To know that someone loved her, that she had a chance to get back something that wasn't as lost as she'd thought.

She'd come back for  _ Andrew. _


End file.
